Following unofficial government approval of planned airport safety modifications, Friedman Memorial Airport is on its way to being allowed to continue operations at its existing site until a new airport is built—an event that appears to be increasingly receding into the future.
“This is an exciting time for the community,” airport Manager Rick Baird said. “Most of the controversy about what should be done with the airport has been vetted and resolved.”
In response to several accidents related to inadequate runway safety areas, Congress in 2005 set a deadline of 2015 for compliance with federal standards for runway and taxiway sizes and spaces. However, Friedman Memorial Airport is within too confined a space to fully meet those standards.
“In the past, the FAA said they would not entertain any modifications to the standards,” Airport Authority Chair Ron Fairfax said. “That forced the issue about building a new airport.”
But after a plan for a new airport was indefinitely suspended in August 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration began to consider options for ways to bring the existing airport into compliance with standards for some C-III planes, a size category that includes Horizon Air’s Q400 turboprop. That was deemed feasible only by limiting the size of planes allowed to land at the airport to 95,000 pounds, which includes the Q400 and regional jets, but excludes larger planes such as Boeing 737s.
The proposed approach is to relocate and extend the airport’s taxiways and relocate airport hangars. Fairfax said the plan has been to show the FAA that “what we’re doing is as safe for these 95,000-pounds-and-below planes as full compliance would be for a 737.” Baird said the airport also had to demonstrate that its plan would not interfere with the National Airspace System, which includes space for landings and takeoffs.
“Most of the controversy about what should be done with the airport has been vetted and resolved.”
Rick Baird
Friedman Memorial Airport manager
During a meeting of the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority on Tuesday, T-O Engineers consultant Dave Mitchell reported that the outcome of a meeting at the airport on June 4-5 with the FAA’s Safety Risk Management panel was “overall positive.” Mitchell said the FAA representatives had no concerns with three of the seven proposed actions discussed, asked for some changes to two and postponed discussion on a sixth. On the seventh—regarding the airport’s air-traffic control tower—panel members made it clear that commercial air service to the airport would be suspended if the tower were ever to be shut down.
In an interview, Baird said the airport staff is amending its Modification of Standards documents to comply with the panel’s recommendations and will send them to the FAA for final approval.
One change required by the panel is that the airport develop operational procedures to deal with planes that weigh less than 95,000 pounds but have wingspans of more than 100 feet. Baird told the Airport Authority that there currently is no such plane, but that one is on the drawing board.
“We can handle one or two operations a day,” he said.
Baird said airport staff consider the panel’s positive response to be a green light to proceed with the first phase of construction this fall. That will consist of building a taxi lane to access the t-hangar area from the west, fencing modifications and an overlay of a portion of the tie-down apron to strengthen it to accommodate heavier aircraft.
Airport Authority members were told that the goal is to make some progress this fall and secure grant funds to allow the bulk of the project to begin early in the construction season next year.
Fairfax said the apparently approved changes “will meet our needs for the next 20 years.”